


The Way She Rolls

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: It's Inauguration Day evening. Amy and Ainsley have different views on the new administration, but a surprising amount in common all the same.





	The Way She Rolls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).



> This is not reality. This President is not the current president. Any echoes of January 2017 are entirely your own imagination. 
> 
> *coughs*
> 
> (This prompt was great, but I don't think I'm as clever as these women, so I'm not sure it's quite what my recip wanted. Hope you enjoy it all the same)

“I literally do not believe this,” says one. She sounds weary. Her eyes are on the screen. It is clearly not the first time she has said this recently.

“Gimme a peach schnapps. No, wait, make it a double,” says the other. She sounds perky, but her eyes are on the screen too. It’s possible the perkiness is a habit. It doesn’t match her expression, which is composed, but bleak. She also sounds a little doubtful about her own words. It’s probably the first time she’s asked for a double in a while. 

“So, you ladies in town for the Inauguration?” asks the bartender. Although, honestly, he doesn’t know why he does it. It hasn’t been the most tip-friendly line of chatter, he has found.

The first woman, the dark, weary one, quirks her mouth. “Uh, no. I have a thing… tomorrow.”

“I’ll just bet you do,” says the other, younger, blonder, but still with something in her expression that is less than content. “You got yourself a great placard?”

“Hi Ainsley,” says Amy Gardner, the fifth co-chair of the Women’s March. “Yeah. My message is sassy. I’m expecting a big hit on Insta, yanno?” She is scheduled to speak four times on the march, and tomorrow will be just another exhausting, important, fulfilling, frustrating day in her endless battle to get some damn attention for the things that matter in life. 

Ainsley Hayes knows this. “I’ll look out for ya,” she says, brightly. 

“Mhm. I guess you’ll be monitoring the coverage, huh? Now that you have the big new job?”

“Guess so,” says Ainsley, and toasts Amy, without drinking. Or, perhaps, herself and the big new job. Her eyes return to the Inauguration coverage. Her fingers grip the glass. She does, this time, take a drink. More of a gulp, actually. 

“How can you work for-“ Amy starts, and then stops herself. “No, no, this is not the time.”

Ainsley drags her eyes away from the screen, and almost smiles. “Wow, you really are mellowing, aren’tcha? The Amy I knew, way back when, she’d never let me off the hook for this one.” The smile slips, and she adds, “But you know what? It’s still duty. Someone has to step up, or-“

And that’s as close to honesty about the new administration from one of its employees as Amy’s ever likely to hear. It’s even, just, something she can respect. “Good luck with that.” 

She drinks. Ainsley drinks, in silence. Which is pretty much an answer. 

The screen is showing the President’s wife, now. Immobile, correct, supportive, gorgeous. 

“Man,” says Amy. “She’s wasted on him. And how can she stand to be there, fake smile and all, while that asshole-”

“That asshole just became President of the United States,” says Ainsley. “And maybe it’s not your business how his wife comports herself. And maybe, just maybe, it’s not up to you to critique the appearance of another woman, who’s trying to do herself credit in the eyes of the world. Don’t you think?” 

The double she is drinking is definitely loosening her tongue. Amy toasts her. “Got me. I guess.” She could fight. She could talk about the appearance of submissiveness. She could talk about the fact that a fair few women have held the Bible for their husbands, and not a one of them has taken the oath yet. Not yet, but so goddam close, and the yawning bruise of that defeat has not left her. She looks at Ainsley. “You could do it.”

Ainsley is sipping the last of her schnapps, and almost chokes. “I don’t believe there’s a vacancy for First Lady,” she says. “And besides, I really don’t see myself-“

Amy laughs. Pretty much the first actual belly-laugh of the day. “Oh man, no, you did not get my meaning. Like, at all.” She finishes her Scotch, feeling the burn. “You could run. You could win. You should. I need opponents like you. Opponents I can respect.”

It’s interesting, distantly, that Ainsley does not choke at that. That running for office is not something from which she recoils. Amy files that, somewhere deep. Somewhere she’ll return to.

“I think,” says Ainsley, delicately. Daringly. Giving the enemy some ammo. “I think that the good people of our great party might have some issues with my sexuality. In fact.” She waves the bartender over. “I need more schnapps. Lots of schnapps.”

“I’ll get it,” says Amy, adding her own order before the bartender goes. And continues, because Ainsley looks so uncertain. “Is that- Is that the first time you’ve said that?”

The inelegant snort and wave that Ainsley dismisses that with is reassuring. Until she dispatches a good swig of her replenished schnapps, and says, “First time to one of you guys.”

Amy is not used to being ‘you guys’. But she gets it. It’s power, for where Ainsley is in life and politics. “So, I better use my power wisely,” is what comes out of her mouth. It shows her hand too much. It also sounds weirdly flirtatious, which wasn’t her intention at all. Or, not till now. 

“You could share your power,” says Ainsley, and damned if that isn’t flirting right back. Apparently Amy was picking up on a vibe. 

“I do like to share,” she offers. “With the right people. And by people, I mean women.” Which is pretty much as blatant as she is likely to get with a member of the new administration. 

Ainsley looks up at the screen, still showing Inauguration footage. “I think I pretty much got this covered. And I have definitely imbibed enough delicious schnapps for one evening. I’m getting out of here.”

Amy is seriously considering a thing with a Republican. A Republican serving the current administration. A Republican serving the current administration who uses _imbibe_ in flirtatious conversation. 

“You need an early night before the march?” Ainsley asks, and it’s so obvious a line that Amy is agreeing before she’s even stopped laughing. 

In the cab back to Amy’s hotel, because God forbid anyone in Washington see Ainsley Hayes entering her own home with a _feminist_ , Amy says on impulse, “You could march, you know? It’s not just about the President. It’s about _women_.”

Ainsley makes a pouty expression that Amy only forgives because it passes quickly. “I’m not the marching kind, Amy. I really don’t look good in pink wool. And I don’t think the best way to get my voice heard is shouting something simplistic along with a few thousand others. So thank you for the offer, but this is strictly about the sex for me.”

They have not, in fact, discussed sex. Or touched at all, less still kissed, though it’s coming. Amy says, “Good to know.” Because, honestly, it’s past time. “You going to get over here any time soon?”

“I do _not_ get off in the back of taxis,” Ainsley is scandalised. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

“I totally am,” says Amy, wriggling out of her underwear and waving it like a flag. 

They get to her hotel at that exact moment, but she’ll treasure the memory of Ainsley’s scandalised expression a long time after this one weird suspended night.


End file.
